Hong Kong officials should carefully understand the Pope’s instructions

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Written by: Commentary Editing Room

2020-10-05 17:10

Last update date: 2020-10-05 17:10

Pope Francis issued a new encyclical "Fratelli Tutti" (Fratelli Tutti) last Saturday (October 3). In addition to calling for world peace and unity, there is a chapter devoted to "better politics" in this long article. , Incisively spotted the world's major problems and made severe criticisms.

For Hong Kong government officials who have been reluctant to carry out reforms, it is indeed worth a careful reading.

The Holy See has recently faced doubts from the United States and other Western countries. It is dissatisfied that the Holy See has not cooperated with Western groups in Europe and America to pressure China on human rights issues such as Hong Kong and Xinjiang.

Some inside and outside the church criticized the pope for not being silent on human rights issues.

The Pope's encyclical seems to respond to these questions in many places.

This shows that the Pope is not indifferent to human rights. Although human rights problems exist in some regions, he pays more attention to the global inability to deal with social issues such as poverty and economic equity.

As the article said, "What do the current terms democracy, freedom, justice, and unanimity mean? They are all distorted and shaped into domineering tools. They are just meaningless labels that can be used to justify any behavior."

What is the big problem in the world

This encyclical of tens of thousands of words criticizes extreme individualism and populism for political extremes on the one hand, and calls on politicians not to give up the real interests of the people in order to win votes and other short-sighted interests.

On the other hand, section 168 directly refers to neoliberalism that takes the market as its absolute belief.

It mentioned that "the fragility of the global system under the epidemic has shown that not all problems can be solved by market freedom."

He believes that the dripping economic effect guaranteed by the neoliberal economy does not exist at all. The large number of poor people facing unemployment and lack of medical care under the epidemic just reflect that the social imbalance caused by the gap between the rich and the poor is already quite serious.

Francis has already made various criticisms of economic neoliberalism and the dripping effect. These issues were not published on a whim. This reflects the Pope’s deep understanding that "economic equity" is the cornerstone of all human rights.

If you can't correctly understand the biggest problem, then the other vocabulary is empty.

The "Washington Consensus" has long been regarded by the outside world as the United States promoting neoliberalism (Neoliberalism) macroeconomic policies to Latin American countries and Eastern European transition countries.

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Lam Cheng should listen to the pope

The Pope’s understanding is undoubtedly worth taking seriously.

Economic injustice is the biggest problem in advanced regions, and it is also the root cause of the instability of Western society and politics in recent years.

Populist politicians do not deal with core issues, but only know how to use xenophobia to transfer issues to others, which has become the source of tension in the world today.

These issues mentioned by the Pope are also core issues in Hong Kong.

Although many years of economic development have enabled Hong Kong to develop into one of the richest economies in the world, the fruits of economic development have not benefited most people.

For example, according to the "Global Living Report 2020" published by CB Richard Ellis earlier, the average monthly salary of Hong Kong people is close to 40,000, but according to the Census and Statistics Department's report, 80% of Hong Kong people earn less than the average monthly salary, including 450,000. Monthly income is less than ten thousand.

The average monthly salary is much higher than the median monthly income, indicating a huge income gap.

The long-term backlog of economic injustice has become a social problem. This is the most fundamental social problem facing Hong Kong at the moment.

Economic inequity is the core issue of Hong Kong and the world.

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The Pope’s proposal is worthy of Hong Kong officials and politicians. It just so happens that Chief Executive Carrie Lam is even a Catholic, and he should listen to the Pope’s lesson and make drastic reforms to Hong Kong’s economic structure.

As the Pope said, "Anyone who thinks (from the epidemic) can learn is only to improve what we are doing now, or to improve the existing systems and rules, then he is denying reality." Hong Kong faces The economic structure can no longer be saved by minor repairs. It is necessary to put aside the market-only free economic thinking and boldly create an economically fair society. This is the direction of Hong Kong's reform.

The average monthly salary of Hong Kong people is 40,000?

What is the point of the world's freest economy?

A fair and just society cannot sit back and watch the disparity between the rich and the poor

The loss of Hong Kong's status as the freest economy is to bid farewell to the old economic thinking time

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Pope Francis, the deep-seated structure of the Hong Kong economy, contradicts the gap between rich and poor 01 view